Coincidence Designs

After months of preparation, no, preparation is the wrong word. How do you sum up endless thinking, going over something in your mind repeatedly, fantasizing about it endlessly, every possible permutation? Obsession, I suppose. I can admit it. Months of obsession, culminating in this one moment.

I sit down next to her.

My heart is beating so fast I felt my shirt must surely be quivering like I?d trapped a small rodent below my neckline. My mouth is dry, the moisture obviously sucked out and diverted directly into my palms, which are sweaty. Why the hell do my palms need sweat glands? My mind is starting to wander. I have to keep focused. You?re ready for this, I tell myself.

She?s right beside me. It takes a few moments for this to register. Her right arms is less that two centimetres to my left- the closest I have ever been to her physically. I realize if I reflect on this thought for more than a few moments, I?ll probably start shaking badly, so I damp down on it. I remember my training and take a few deep breaths, as quietly as I can.

Remember your training, I tell myself, and I begin.

?You know,? I lean across slightly toward her ear, speaking lowly, looking up from my programme for tonight?s entertainment in what I hope appears to be entirely unforced nonchalance, ?while many believe Mozart?s Requiem to be the work most representative of his canon, I?ve always found it to be more indicative of Constanze?s obsession with completing his work.?

She turns toward me, eyes suddenly widening. ?That?s incredible, I?ve always thought exactly the same thing!?

I know. You wrote your Masters thesis on more or less that very topic. I?ve read it at least a dozen times. And your Bachelors, which was on the Western adoption of the Haiku and its subsequent lack of focus on nature in both cultures. I had your sporadically updated web journal bound into a volume which I keep next to my bed- I read a different entry every night, even though I?ve read the entire thing several times over and highlighted significant sections. In a filing cabinet in my office I have an entire drawer dedicated to you. I have employment records, interviews with family members, friends and old lovers. I have photos of you leaving your house in the morning, eating your lunch during the day, coming home at night, and infrared footage of your heat signature moving around inside your house. I know every school you ever went to, and every job you?ve ever had. I know you, Anna Dolores (but tells everyone it?s Delia) Blake, because I love you.

?Sorry, I?m Alan,? I extend my hand with a genuinely warm smile, because I?m genuinely about to have the most genuinely incredible moment of my life, because she?s genuinely about to touch me. ?Alan Severe.?

?Hi, I?m Anna,? she says, shaking my hand vigorously. A yip! of joy comes racing up my throat, and I have to cough to suppress it ?you seem familiar to me, do we work in the same building??

?I?m not sure,? (I am, actually) ?I work in the Malleus building, near Regent?s Park.?

?Me too!? she positively bubbles with excitement. I remain poker-faced, because I get the distinct feeling that if I let myself show a similar excitement in return, I?ll start screaming for joy and leaping up and down the aisles kissing my fellow theatre goers. ?I work on the fourth floor.? (I know)

?I work on the sixth- we must have seen each other in the elevator or something.?

?And we just happened to sit next to each other- What a coincidence!?

?What is a coincidence, Mr. Severe?? Ennis Gately had asked me two months earlier, his long, thin fingers forming a steeple in front of his long, thin nose.

?A?? I didn?t have time to answer

??it is a co-incidence of often random events that the human mind seems to find significant. But we know that nothing is ?random?. All events are cause?and effect. Here at Coincidence Designs, we merely analyze the causes?to produce the desired effect.?

His fingers broke the steeple and began to interlace, one by one, like a zip, until each of his hands was clasping the other, almost going past his wrists, so long were they.

?What effect would you like to produce, Mr. Severe; or, if I may be so bold, what person would you like to seduce?? He grinned a breathy grin. Each of his teeth had gaps between them, as did each of the hairs of either side of his head.

?Well,? I shuffled my feet ?there?s a girl who works in the same building as me.?

Gately didn?t say ?Ah, there always is.?, but his hands unclasped and he made a palms-forward gesture that couldn?t possibly have said it better.

?And you are here because, when you introduce yourself to her for the first time, you want it to be the perfect first time, a most perfect moment, to achieve the highest chance of beginning a most perfect coupling.?

?I heard that?s what you do.?

?That is what we do, Mr. Severe! And we do it most well, and we also do so much more.? His mouth didn?t seem to have any content beyond his teeth- where you?d expect to see a tongue and some impression of a palate, there was only darkness. ?Let me tell you what we do, Mr. Severe: We research. No different from any other private investigation company. Very discreet, perfectly legal. We compile anything that?s publicly available about your amoureux prévu, we interview certain people under a false guise, we carry out low-level surveillance, both audio and visual. This is merely the first stage, you understand, the fuel to make the engine run. This engine is the heart of our operation: Your perfect moment. Armed with the knowledge of this young lady, you will know the perfect thing to say to her, in the perfect place, at the perfect time. Because life is a matter of timing, Mr. Severe- our job is simply to bring your watch into synch with hers.?

I?m rushing through the concert?s after party, frantically trying to find her. The concert itself had gone brilliantly. We?d had an animated conversation about Mozart. I knew exactly what to say, I never stumbled or stuttered as I usually do when I?m nervous. In fact, I felt very comfortable with her. She was so kind, and friendly, I wondered why I?d ever been scared to approach her before. She?d gone to the bathroom after the performance, and I went to the bar to get her a drink. I was gushing with excitement- I could feel my soul dancing in my chest. But that was half an hour ago, and I couldn?t see her. There was a bar on every level in the Albert Hall, and the bathrooms awkwardly placed split-level between each- perhaps she?d gone to a different bar? I?m running between each, a drink in both hands, looking frenetically around for her, terrified that she?s gone.

There she is! The wave of relief that rushes over me is palpable. I approach her as casually as I can, given the fact that there?s spilled-drink stains of both of my wristicuffs. She?s talking to a tall man with a square jaw. She has a drink already. It?s a whiskey. Square-jaw has a whiskey, too.

?Oh Alan, there you are.? She places her hand on my arm. I should feel bliss, but oddly, I feel rage. ?This is Darren.?

Tall `n square extends one of his meaty paws towards the hand that Anna has just relieved of her drink.

?Dar?n.? he says, in a slight American accent. Fucking Americans! Who is this Ameriman with his blocky head and his tallness and his paisley-blue shirt that looks like his mother ironed it? He is messing with our perfect moment! Anna has taken her hand off my arm and is now staring up at him with her beautiful, attentive eyes. But they should be attending me, surely?

?Excuse me, Dar?n, Anna and I were talking earlier, and if you very much don?t mind I?d like to continue our conversation.?

?Oh Alan, Darren?s here all by himself, let?s not send him away.? Anna says, far too reasonably, I sense. Darasfuckinghugeasahouseren stares daggers with ?fuck off, cunt? engraved on them at me.

They return to their conversation. I try to think of things to say to interject, to steer the conversation back to my capacious, studied-precisely-for-this-evening knowledge of Mozart and the classics, but they?re talking about Darren and ooh what are you doing here and I?m an investment banker and ooh aren?t you lonely in your mansion and yeah sometimes and I can feel Anna moving closer to him and I can feel myself moving further away from control.

?So Darren,? I say, this time pronouncing it in an overly posh-English, as if to defy the sheer Americanness of it, ?how much are you willing put into this woman??

Uh oh. There it goes.

?I?m sorry, friend?? Darren angles his body away from Anna and towards me, like the Titanic going hard over to avoid the Irish coast.

?Well, how much time and money are you willing to put forward??

I try to stop myself, desperately, I try to stop the words coming out but they?re started and it feels like the only alternatively to running away screaming is to finish what I started.

?Because it?s great that you?ve put in fifteen minutes, friend, but I?ve put in four months. Twelve-thousand pounds in investigators fees. Hours upon hours and then hours of research. I know this woman. I?ve breathed this woman. I love this woman.

I love you, Anna.?

I stare into Anna?s eyes as I speak the last, aware now that I?ve been shouting, and the whole room is looking at me, utterly silent. Anna?s eyes begin to fill with fluid, as mine are. The romance and purity of the moment is divine. I?ve offered myself up to Aphrodite, and I wait for my reward. She whispers:

?Darren, I?m frightened.?

Her takes her tiny hand in his monstrous paw and shoves me out of the way, dragging her from the bar. I fall backwards into a crowd of people, my glass flying from my hand and shattering on the edge of a table, as my heart shatters into a thousand words, notes, essays, log entries, photos, fantasies.

?But I?ve given you so much!? I scream after her retreating figure. ?Does it matter that you didn?t realize it?!??

But she?s gone, and I?m sitting on the floor in a room full of strangers, staring at me in pity and revulsion.

My perfect moment.

Everything leading to this.